The winter Olympic games are often seen as more of an appendix to their larger summertime counterparts than a tentpole in themselves. But in 2026, the parallels between Milan \u2014 which co-hosts the 25th winter Olympics with Cortina d\u2019Ampezzo, a ski town near the Austrian border \u2014 and 2024 host city Paris are impossible to ignore. They also paid dividends in an opening ceremony that, much like the Seine-set one a year and a half ago, drew on the traditions of a European cultural capital to deliver a playful, detail-dense tone setter for the weeks to come. (The ceremony was covered live on NBC and its affiliated streaming service Peacock, preceded by an acknowledgement of \u201cToday\u201d anchor Savannah Guthrie\u2019s absence amid the ongoing search for her missing mother.) Even if Milan\u2019s ceremony didn\u2019t match the Paris one in scale, it made for an equally enthusiastic welcome to the world\u2019s largest sporting event.<\/p>\n
From a dance number that paid homage to the works of sculptor Antonio Canova to a performance of the iconic Puccini aria \u201cNessun dorma\u201d by singer Andrea Bocelli, the ceremony\u2019s producers opted to emphasize Italian identity throughout. (Apart from a random-seeming cameo by Charlize Theron to encourage peace among nations, that is. At least Mariah Carey sang a bit of Italian when she covered \u201cVolare\u201d!) The creative portion of the ceremony, bracketing the parade of athletes led by guides in full-length parka gowns, spanned high art and low: a procession of models in suits by the namesake house of the late designer Giorgio Armani in the hues of the tricolor Italian flag and a gloriously goofy, Eurovision-esque dance number led by Sabrina Impacciatore of \u201cThe White Lotus\u201d and \u201cThe Paper.\u201d The Italian ethos spans both refined tailoring and shiny metallic ski suits paired with face glitter, and the ceremony reflected both extremes.<\/p>\n
Popular on Variety<\/p>\n
While Impacciatore is known to international audiences thanks to her work in American TV, the ceremony incorporated other Italian talents who have yet to become as recognizable on the world stage. Actress and comedian Brenda Lodigiani performed a miming act riffing on the Italian trope of communicating with one\u2019s hands, while actor Pierfrancesco Favino staged a dramatic reading of Giacamo Leopardi\u2019s famous poem \u201cL\u2019Infinito.\u201d Model Vittoria Ceretti, best known stateside for her romantic relationship with Leonardo Dicaprio, acted as a courier for the Italian flag.<\/p>\n
The deployment of local talent, which extended even to figures outside the entertainment industry like astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti, was a meaningful gesture. But the apotheosis of the ceremony arrived early, and had little to do with individual personalities. An ecstatic dance to Rossini\u2019s \u201cWilliam Tell Overture\u201d united a rainbow-hued cast \u2014 dressed as everything from Rome\u2019s Colosseum to Milan\u2019s Duomo to dress cutouts to Moka pots \u2014 under three enormous tubes of paint, each representing a primary color. The segment was a gloriously chaotic tribute to Italy\u2019s successes across the arts, and carried the tone even through slower lulls like a call for peace by rapper Ghali, featuring the aforementioned Theron cameo. (Though it is amusing to think of United States Vice President JD Vance, who attended the ceremony with the Second Lady, listening to Theron\u2019s definition of peace as prosperity regardless of race, class or sexuality. Come to think of it, the entire uniting theme of \u201cArmonia,\u201d an agreeable platitude about harmony among nations, felt pointed in the presence of the isolationist Vance.)<\/p>\n
Like the games themselves, the ceremony was split between Milan\u2019s San Siro Stadium and Alpine venues like Rasen-Antholz, with two separate cauldrons lit via Olympic flame at the evening\u2019s end. The divided focus could sometimes be awkward; I pity the athletes who had to trudge through a snowy street instead of circumnavigating the stadium. But the ceremony did serve to highlight the breadth of Italian geography along with the breadth of Italian culture. The winter Olympics will likely never feel as major as their warm-weather siblings. They can still create grandeur and hometown pride in and of themselves.<\/p>\n
Source: RhinoEasy News<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The winter Olympic games are often seen as more of an appendix to their larger summertime counterparts than a tentpole<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1144,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}